Brown Homestead offers a trip through Christmas past

With the help of volunteers, the Brown Homestead is planning a few Christmas events that will take visitors back in time to experience the holidays as they may have been celebrated in the rural home in different eras. ~ Luke Edwards photo

By Luke Edwards

The holidays bring with it many traditions. Some remain constant over the years, others get tweaked and evolve, and still more sometimes crop up out of nowhere. But for Diana Tracey, while the traditions may be great, Christmas means one thing above all.

Family.

A volunteer for the Brown Homestead in St. Catharines, Tracey has been hard at work in the weeks leading up to Christmas preparing the historic farmhouse for the season. It’s an ideal job for her, connecting her passion for history with her love of the holidays.

“Christmas to me has always had a family feel. It’s a family tradition,” she said late last month as a group of volunteers finished a day of preparations for the homestead’s Christmas programming.

Coming from a military family, Tracey said her childhood didn’t involve big family get-togethers at Christmastime, since they moved around a lot. So when she settled down and started her own family, Tracey wanted to make sure Christmas was that one time of year everyone got together.

In preparation for the Brown Homestead’s Christmas programming - they’ll have a Dec. 6 open house with crafts and three days of candlelight tours later in the month - Tracey researched the history of the home and the four primary families who lived there over the years. Different parts of the house will be decorated to reflect the different eras.

It starts in the main hallway at the entrance with the most recent era: decorations that reflect the modern times. From there visitors will be able to travel to the different rooms and different eras, beginning with an 18th-century German Christmas in tribute to the heritage of John Brown, a Loyalist with German roots. For that room, visitors can expect a simple design with lots of greenery.

His son, Adam Brown, represents the next iteration. With some familiar greenery, this room also includes a Georgian feel. At that time, children would often receive a single gift, usually something handmade, like mitts and a scarf. This is also when Christmas trees first came on the scene, though they were decorated with fruits and gingerbread.

“And other things you could eat,” Tracey said.

This was also the era when trees had real candles on them. Tracey said they’ll also have candles but in the name of safety they won’t be lighting them.

After the Browns came the Chellew family, who lived in the home when the idea of Christmas in the British Commonwealth undertook a drastic change under the Victorian period. Things became more elaborate and many newer traditions have familiar connections to this period. For instance, Tracey said the kissing ball was an earlier version of mistletoe. The balls of greenery would be placed in the home, and eager young gentlemen could pluck a berry from the kissing ball, which would entitle them to one peck on the cheek of a young lady.

“When the berries were gone, there were no more kisses allowed,” Tracey said.

The upstairs of the homestead is decorated to represent the period when the Powers family owned the property. This section has some special meaning for Tracey, since they chose a 1950s Christmas, which harkens back to her childhood. Here visitors can expect lots of tinsel, big stockings and classic toys like old train sets or sleds.

“It’s a connection for me and how I remember Christmas,” Tracey said.

And that’s one of the main ideas of the Brown Homestead and much of their programming. Connecting the past to the present is an ongoing theme with their work.

“You can see the future when you look back on the past,” Tracey said.

The homestead has two major Christmas programs running this month. The first is a family festive open house on Saturday, Dec. 6 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visitors can tour the era rooms and make heritage crafts, or enjoy festive treats, hot chocolate and apple cider.

Tickets for the family festive open house are $15 for adults and $5 for kids.

Then, from Thursday, Dec. 11 to Saturday, Dec. 13 the homestead will be offering candlelight Christmas tours. Here, visitors can tour the house in a more in-depth way as guides delve deeper into the history of the home and how its farming families may have celebrated Christmas over the years. The tours run every hour on the hour, lasting about 50 minutes.

Tours begin at 1 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, with the final tour starting at 7 p.m. for those two days. On Saturday, tours begin at 10 a.m., with the last one starting at 4 p.m.

Pre-registration is required. For more information on both events visit thebrownhomestead.ca.